


Out of Step

by Fyre



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 12:25:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4348701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Dottie steals one of Howard's newest inventions, Peggy ends up on a mission to a most unexpected place. And time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of Step

"You're sure this will work?"

Howard flashed a grin up at Peggy as he adjusted the harness. "I made it. What could go wrong?"

"I would give you a list," Peggy replied tartly, "but I doubt I have the time."

Howard stepped back, examining her. "You should be good to go. It'll lock onto the beacon of the other device and take you to the same time and place as... what are we even calling her now?"

Peggy ran her finger under one of the straps at her waist. "Dangerous," she replied. "And afterwards, when I have her, we'll both be brought home?"

Howard tapped a button on the panel on her chest. "Get a tight hold of her, then hit this, and you'll be pulled back to this place and time."

"Miss Carter," Jarvis said nervously from the control panel. "Are you sure this is necessary? Mr Stark's prototypes tend to be... temperamental."

"Hey!" Howard protested.

"It's absolutely necessary, Mr Jarvis," Peggy replied. "Dottie has caused enough trouble in the present. Goodness only knows what damage she could do to the past. If she has her way, we might well all be under Soviet rule."

Jarvis shuddered. "You make a good point."

Howard headed to the control panel to join Jarvis. "Okay. Don't move."

As the lights blazed around her, Peggy closed her eyes and counted back from ten.

She didn't have to ask if it had worked.

The waft of damp city air hit her, and she opened her eyes. The street was shockingly familiar, as was the antique shop she was standing outside of. Her heart beat against her ribs. This was where Captain America was born. If Dottie had come to steal the formula, it would be a huge advantage to the Soviet forces. 

She buttoned her coat around the time-travel device, and hurried towards the shop, but before she even reached the door, she knew her first assumption was wrong. The paint wasn't faded or peeling. The windows were too clean.

She was early. Earlier than Operation Rebirth. 

She turned on her heel and stepped onto the sidewalk, walking briskly towards the nearest newspaper stand. The seller's clothes were not utterly outdated, but they were certainly not of the same cut as the time she had left. It was the man's body that told a story. He was too thin, and she could see the deep hollows beneath his eyes. His watch was loose on a bony wrist, and one hand was habitually clasping the moneybelt at his waist. His suit also seemed made for a bigger man who certainly wouldn't sell newspapers for a living. 

A man who had lost an unhealthy amount of weight, work and money lately?

Peggy stopped in front of the stand, and even before she glanced down at the dates on the cheap newsprint sheets, she knew when she was: 1932, the height of the Great Depression.

Without currency of the time, she knew better than to attempt to purchase anything. Being arrested for carrying counterfeit coins from the 1940s would help no one. She offered the man a tired smile.

"Do you need any help, sir?"

The look he gave her was part pity, part frustration. "Like I told the last six of you girls, I don't even got enough to keep the stand going as it is." He shook his head. "Sorry, sweetheart."

"Thank you," she murmured, turning and walking away, her mind racing. 

The theft of the time machine was a theft of convenience. Dottie had been loose in Howard's lab, wounded, and trying to escape Peggy. She'd grabbed the machine, and none of them could be sure if she had a reason. Howard’s technology was valuable, but so was escaping alive.

It was possible to set the machine to jump in time, but Peggy had no idea if Dottie had chosen this time frame, or if Howard had his own reasons for setting it.

The only thing she could do was find Dottie, and pray that it was in time to stop her from causing any trouble. The machine should have deposited her in the same place as Dottie had arrived, and Dottie only had a ten minute head start and an ankle that could be generously called buggered.

Peggy headed back in the direction of the antique shop, searching the ground.

There were a few blood spots, and she smiled.

A trail always made things easier. 

Unfortunately, it faded only a block away. There was a group of people gathered around a distressed woman, who was rocking her baby. People in distress. Well, if that wasn’t a calling card, nothing was.

“Excuse me,” she said, putting on her best New York accent. “Have any of you seen a woman coming this way? About so tall? Blonde? With a bad leg?”

“You some kind of joker?” A man demanded angrily. 

The weeping woman looked up. “You looking for her?”

Peggy smiled her devil’s smile, the one that put the fear of God into the Commandos. “Mr Rigoletto sent me. He don’t like it when people skip out on their meetings with him.”

The woman went ash-white. “She stole my purse, ma’am,” she said. “Tipped over the baby’s carriage right into the street.” She pointed a trembling finger towards an alleyway. “She went that way. The boys, they went after her.”

Peggy inclined her head. “Mr Rigoletto will be grateful.”

She heard the whispers start even before she was out of earshot. In the course of her research in New York during the war, she had learned an awful lot about the criminal underground in the earlier years of the century, a great deal of it gory and absolutely fascinating. 

She cut through the narrow passage, and out onto the other side of the buildings, looking around.

The sound of a scuffle caught her attention across the street. 

The boys, she remembered. They went after her.

The last thing she needed was civilian casualties. 

Peggy broke into a run, sprinting across the street. She had her gun tucked at her back, and another smaller one strapped to her thigh. One in the hand was enough as she dashed into the alleyway. Dottie swung around. There were two boys there. One was laid out on the ground, and the other, she pulled in front of her, a swearing, kicking human shield. 

“You should keep your mouth shut,” she murmured to her hostage. He had blood running from his lip and his pants were torn.

“Hell with you!” The boy kept kicking until her hand tightened around his throat, cutting off the air. Still, he clawed at her arm, and Peggy’s heart was pounding so hard she could barely hear over the blood rushing in her ears. 

Her voice shook. “Put him down, Dottie.”

“And give up my advantage?” Dottie laughed sharply. “I don’t think so. You think I didn’t recognise him too?”

Her room. Her photograph. Dottie had been there. Dottie had seen him.

Oblivious to the danger he was in, the boy who would one day be Captain America was still futilely fighting, but gradually sagging in Dottie’s grip.

“Please!” Peggy exclaimed. “He can’t breathe!”

Dottie was a precision weapon. Dottie knew the exact grip to exert just enough pressure to keep someone pliant but breathing. Dottie had never counted on a teenage Captain America having bad lungs and awful health and turning blue at the slightest pressure on his throat.

She looked down, started, when Steve’s legs gave out underneath him, and she had the scrawny deadweight of the boy in her arms.

Peggy’s gun was on her, but she was blocked by Steve, right up until the moment Steve moved like a snake and stamped hard on Dottie’s foot. Dottie was so surprised that all her attention went to him for a second, and she never saw the trash can lid coming at her from behind as the other boy rammed into her.

They all went down in a heap, and the other boy - bigger and darker than Steve - wrestled Dottie on the ground, dragging her off Steve.

Peggy almost forgot to move.

It was like seeing ghosts. 

Sergeant Barnes and Captain America as children, fighting a Russian assassin.

She dove in as fast as she could, hauling Barnes off Dottie. She backhanded the other woman with the pistol twice, knocking her senseless, then pressed one gun to Dottie’s throat, the other to her midriff, just in case. 

“Thank you, boys,” she said, fixing her eyes on Dottie’s face, because looking anywhere else, at anyone else, was going to hurt so much more. “You can take the purse back to its owner now.”

She could hear Steve’s breathing, laboured and heavy. “What are you gonna do to her?”

“That’s Mr. Rigoletto’s business.”

“Shit,” Barnes hissed between his teeth. “Steve…”

A can rattled nearby. Steve was struggling to his feet. She could see him out of the corner of her eye. There was blood on his face, and he looked like death warmed up. “Take her to the police,” he said fiercely. “She should go to jail.”

“Steve!” Barnes’s whisper was more urgent, terrified. 

Peggy turned her head just enough to look at him through the tangled strands of her hair. He wouldn’t recognise her, not ten years down the line, but she could see the Steve she knew in the balled fists, the fierce, stubborn jut of his jaw, the determined eyes that showed no fear even in front of a woman who professed to work for the mob. Especially when he was telling her not to do her job.

“You’ve been brave, kid,” she said. “Don’t ruin it by being stupid.” She shot a look at Barnes. “Get your buddy out of here, before I lose my temper.”

Barnes nodded wildly, grabbing Steve by the arm and dragging him out of the alleyway. “You’re gonna get us killed, dumbass,” he hissed as they headed out of earshot, and the words were like a physical blow.

Peggy had to take a breath to steady herself.

Lord, it was all the worse for being unexpected.

She unbuttoned her coat with shaking hands, and reached for the time gadget looped around Dottie’s waist. It was time to go home, and when she got there, it was time for a cup of tea and a good, hard cry.


End file.
